THE BERTILLON SYSTEM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 93, 11 April 1914, Page 4

THE BERTILLON SYSTEM.

Like some other notable men, the late M. Uevtillon’s great reputation was based, so far as the general public was concerned, largely on an illu-

| sion. He did not invent the fingerprint system, which, wus first suggested by Francis Galton, and created in India as a practical working system by Sir Edward Henry, the present Commissioner of Police. He was as a matter of fact rather opposed to it, and it was only towards the end of his life that the comparative failure of Ins own much more elaborate system of anthropometry induced him somewhat grudgingly to recognise its importance. Hut of the general science of anthropometry, of which the finger-print system is only a singularly perfectly developed branch, Bertilion might fairly claim to have been the founder. He was a very considerable criminologist, and his work in other departments of detective craft would be quite sufficient to establish a lesser reputation.